MODERN EDUCATION

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22777, 10 July 1937, Page 24

MODERN EDUCATION

VIEWS OF EXPERTS BREAKING FRESH GROUND INDIVIDUALITY STRESSED Well known in all spheres of education as an authority on the psychology and education of young children, and head of the Department of Child Development at the University of London Institute of Education, Dr. Susan. Isaacs, M.A., D.Sc., arrived at Auckland yesterday by tho Mariposa for tho New Education Fellowship conference. In many spheres of child development, Dr. Isaacs has been little less than a pioneer, introducing into Britain nursery schools planned to encourage initiative, independence aiJ d confidence in tho pupils. The author of several books on child psychology and the training of children, Dr. Isaacs has specialised in the mental life of children from 7 to 11 years of age. Dr. Isaacs said that as a result of her studies she was convinced that children learned best by solving their own problems or those things nearest to them in their personal lives. "The child's own activity is the key to his full development. It is liis own thinking and his own talking that are the chief means of his education," she said. She did not consider that allowing a child to develop along his own natural lines implied a lack of discipline or training. In discussing the work being done in connection with what were described as problem children. Dr. Isaacs said there were many different causes of the mental state of these children. Some wero nervously affected by their environment, others were merely neurotic, while a great many suffered from unsympathetic'treatment' from those who did not understand them. Tho child needed a firm background of regular routine and quiet control. ,

TRAINING IN ECONOMICS DR. MARION C. HAMILTON Dr. Marion C. Hamilton, of San Francisco, who is visiting New Zealand to attend the Now Education Fellowship Conference, throughout her career lias specialised in economics and child training, gaining her degrees at the London University, where she spent three years, and at the Columbia University. An important new movement in education was the training of children in the management of'money, both in judicious spending and proportional saving, said Dr. Hamilton. In this era of what she termed "economic illiteracy," parents and educators were com wig more and more to believe that the training of children in the fundamentals of economics should begin in the early years rather than be left to the end of the college course when bad habits in handling personal finances may have been established for life. Dr. Hamilton, who is a member of the American Association of Economic Education, had assisted in the formulating of a highly successful course in money management used for more than eight j-ears in the Brookline schools.

NEW METHODS IN MUSIC MISS HELEN CUNNINGHAM "Progressive education, although a new project in the United States, is gradually becoming more and more important. It is one of the new forms of education that lias a great future before it," said Miss Helen Cunningham, director of musical education at the progressive school at' Honolulu. In her opinion the new methods employed by the progressive schools were more practical than the formal methods of ordinary schools. In progressive education the children were allowed to plan their own routine for the" day while the teachers acted as guides. There were no set hours for set subjects and the day was not divided into definite periods. At the beginning of the school day every child planned his day's work and proceeded

■with it in his own way and time, under guidance of the project teachers, as they were called. Since Miss Cunningham's arrival at Honolulu she had arranged instrumental education to supplement the former education in singing, and at present had organised an instrumental band of about 165 pupils. Musical education had been introduced to nearly all the schools of the United States and was regarded as specially important in progressive education. WOMAN AND MARRIAGE MRS. PAUL DENGLER "More and more women in Vienna are taking degrees at the universities, entering into professions and earning their own living," said Mrs. Paul Dengler, who reached Auckland yesterday by the Mariposa with her husband, director of the Austro-American Institute of Education at Vienna, -who is attending the New Education Fellowship Conference. Mrs. Dengler is herself a doctor of political science and is at present working for her degreo in medicine. When she returns to Vienna and has completed her degreo Mrs. Dengler plans to take up work in the university clinic at Vienna. a In Mrs. Dcng!er'B opinion marriage was not sufficient for a woman. It was not, naturally, for a man, and a woman needed some work to keep her intellect alive, to make her a genuine companion to her husband and to give her the opportunity of developing her capabilities along somo useful channel. "An educated woman or a woman who is herself still learning, or following some work of her own is moro of a companion, not only to her husband but also to her children," tfaid Mrs. Dengler.